Tunisia: Siliana and the heritage of Farhat Hached sixty years after his assassination

Farhat Hached is still making history in Tunisia,
where the
government is fixated on shifting Tunisian society in a more religious
direction, while failing to address the country’s appalling poverty and
unemployment. We learn about that history.

Sixty
years ago on this date, December 5, 1952, Farhat Hached, legitimately
considered the key founder and father of the independent Tunisian trade union
movement was assassinated by agents of French colonialism. But the
movement that he was so instrumental in creating and shaping, the Union General
des Travailleurs Tunisien (UGTT) remains vibrant, fighting for workers’ rights,
fair wages and social justice today just as it did in those now long gone, last
dark and painful days of French colonial rule. Nationwide commemorative
activities were planned to mark the occasion.

But
it is not for nothing that 60 years later, through all of Tunisia’s years as an
independent country, through the Bourguiba and Ben Ali’s years, that it has
been impossible to snuff out the memory of Farhat Hached. He’s too much a part
of his country’s history. Farhat Hached was the son of a fisherman from the
Kerkennah islands, 12 miles off the coast of Sfax, a poor island chain,‘the
periphery of the periphery’. He made history. Sixty years after his’ death,
he’s still making it.

There was no better way to celebrate Hached’s heritage than the way it was done in
Siliana, Tunisia, a town ninety miles southwest of the capitol, Tunis. There
for five days, a classically militant Tunisian youth – those same folks whose
righteous wrath overthrew the Ben Ali dictatorship two years ago – took to the
streets with the local members of the UGTT. For five days, tens of thousands of
them stood strong in the streets of Siliana, facing down units of the Tunisian
military sent by the Ennahdha-led government to crush their momentum. The
military opened fire with bird shot, wounding 200 and if reports are accurate,
permanently blinding at least 17 youth..

Demotix/Chedly Ben Ibrahim. A man is seen applauding in front the headquarters of the Tunisian General Union of Labour UGTT.

But
when physical confrontation ended and the UGTT called off the demonstrations,
it was the government, shaken to its core, that was forced to concede, and not
the workers. A few days before the sixtieth anniversary of Hached’s
assassination, and with the shadow of the self-immolated Sidi Bouzid youth
Mohammed Bouazizi also haunting them, the three-party- coalition transition
Tunisian government blinked first, backed off and agreed to UGTT demands that
the district’s governor be sacked and that a state jobs programme be
implemented to address the nagging socio-economic crisis facing not only
Siliana, but the whole country,

The
labour-led Siliana uprising was more than just a spontaneous expression of
anger and frustration. It was much more. It was a reminder that massive youth
unemployment, low wages combined with classic ‘structural adjustment take-ways’
were among the key contributing factors to the revolt which brought down Ben
Ali and forced him and his wife, Leila Trabelsi, to flee the country on January
14, 2011. It was a protest against the government’s dilly-dallying, its
fixation with shifting Tunisian society in a more religious direction while
coming up empty (or almost so) in efforts to address the country’s appalling
poverty and unemployment. It was a protest against the social polarization
between rich and poor, between the urban centres and the more rural areas,
which again has hardly been addressed since Ben Ali fled the country. In
Siliana, the Ennahdha-led transition government, one that has continued with
the main lines of the neo-liberal economic policies of the Ben Ali
administration, took a sharp blow.

And
make no mistake – Siliana was a warning to the transition government – nothing
less: get serious about dealing with the country’s genuine problems, or face
the consequences. Failing that ‘the people’ will sweep you from power as they
did Ben Ali. The message was unambiguous: time to get back to the basics
- to resolving the socio-economic crisis, the crisis in democracy which
had triggered the 2010-2011 social explosion in the first place.

And
Siliana sent another message to the Tunisia’s government: that the UGTT, as it
was when Farhat Hached was using his extra-ordinary talent as a labour
organizer, remains a force with which to be reckoned. Farhat Hached, watching all this and raising his fist in
solidarity with the youth and trade unionists of Siliana from his vantage point above, must be smiling.

‘La
Main Rouge’ assassinates Farhat Hached …

On
December 5, 1952, on the road to Rades, Farhad Hached was gunned down by a
French para-military hit squad called La Main Rouge (The Red Hand’) in a
operation which all had all the signs of being run by the French president,
Jean de Hautecloque, a hard line French colonial administrator, sent to Tunisia
to break the back of the growing pro-independence movement. The murder took
place in two stages. First, a car pulled up alongside his; two gunmen on the
passenger side opened fire, severely wounding Hached and drove off. Severely
wounded, Hached was still able to get out of his car alive. But then a second
car stopped; gunmen got out and finished Hached off with bullets to the brain.
Hached left a devastated 22 year old wife and four young children: the oldest
Nour-eddine, who would become Tunisia’s ambassador to the United States and
Japan, was eight years old; his youngest Samira, who would never know her
father, only eight months old.

Demotix/Sarah Mersch. Peaceful rally at the regional UGTT (Tunisian trade union) office in the morning with several hundred participants.

According
to an account in a recently published biography of Mahmoud El Materi, one of
the founders of Tunisia’s Neo-Destour – `New Constitutional’ Party, (Mahmoud El
Materi: Pionnier de la Tunisie Moderne by Anissa El Materi Hached.
Sud Editions, Tunis: 2011), Hached’s assassination provoked angry
demonstrations far and wide throughout the Arab World and Europe at the time.
Trade unionists in Casablanca, in a number of Algerian cities and elsewhere
throughout the world demonstrated for over a week following the assassination.

A
street in Casablanca bears his name as do numerous schools, hospitals and
streets throughout Tunisia. Other ‘Red Hand’ assassinations of Tunisian
nationalist leaders followed: Hedi Chaker, head of the Neo-Destourian Party in
Sfax was also killed, as was Chadly Kastalli, vice president of the Tunis
Municipality and close to the pro-nationalist Moncef Bey. But none of these
assassinations achieved their goal of derailing the nationalist movement and
utterly destroying the Union General des Travailleurs Tunisiens, the UGTT as it
was already commonly referred to and still is today..

On
the contrary, in the aftermath of Hached’s death, the movement for national
independence from French colonial domination stiffened and would lead a mere
four years later to Tunisian independence, an independence in which Hached
himself was a major player.

The Man From Kerkennah

Sixty
years after his murder, Farhat Hached remains nothing short of a much-loved
national Tunisian hero of the anti-colonial movement. Hached was one of the
least factional figures of his day during a period when factionalism was rife.
His eyes were always ‘on the prize’ – independence from France, although he
never lived to see the end of the French Protectorate in Tunisia that he helped
to discredit and ultimately defeat.

While
time – and historical revelations – have tended to puncture the halos atop the
heads of many of the country’s nationalist icons, Hached’s contribution and
reputation remain intact. Hached’s family along with several French human
rights groups are suing the
French government both for an apology and for the release
of classified government documents related to the case.

Demotix/Chedly Ben Ibrahim. A woman is seen chanting slogans against the government, and a Tunisian flag is seen waved.

Farhad
Hached, was born on Kerkennah, a small chain of fishing village islands off the
coast of Sfax in 1914. In 1929, forced to leave school at the age of 15, and
seek employment because of his father’s death, Hached found work in Sousse,
some miles up the coast, halfway between Sfax and Tunis with la Société du
transport du Sahel (The Sahel Transportation Company) - as a mail courier
(convoyeur). Almost immediately some of his other talents surfaced. He wasted
no time in organizing a union of transport workers, which affiliated with the
France-based Confederation Generale du Travail (CGT). Hached’s union activities
continued and soon he became active beyond the transport workers and involved
in regional and national union organizing drives, for which, eventually in 1939
he was fired.

Difficult
years followed during World War II, when Tunisia was ruled by Vichy France and
temporarily occupied by the Nazis until British and US armies liberated it in
May of 1943. After the liberation, Hached was rehired by the Free French
colonial government to direct its Public Works Department in the Sfax region.
He immediately went back to union organizing, and now employed, took the hand
of a Kerkennah cousin, Emma Hached. Soon thereafter, Hached broke with the CGT
for which he had organized for 15 years. He, and other Tunisian trade unionists
were critical of the positions taken within the French union by socialists and
communists who ignored – and did not support – the Tunisian call for
independence from France. From now on the Tunisian trade union movement would
be standing on its own Tunisian feet, finding its own way.

The
split was significant as it marks the beginning of an independent Tunisian
trade union movement with its own leadership and a cadre split off from the
colonial centre in Paris. Hached’s experience, having ‘grown up’ politically
and as a union organizer within the CGT (as either a member or supporter of the
French Communist Party – I do not know the exact details here) was by no means
unique. Another North African, whose evolution paralleled Hached’s is the
Algerian trade unionist and anti-colonial militant Messali Hadj.4

Soon
after the split from the CGT, Hached, in concert with other Tunisian trade
unionists began the process of bringing together an independent Tunisian
national trade union movement. His first effort was to create what was referred
to as the Confederation of Free Trade Unions of the South – meaning the south
of Tunisia (L’union des syndicats libres du Sud) based upon a three point
programme: 1. Social justice 2. Equality between Tunisian and French workers
(working in Tunisia) 3. Support for national independence and an end to French
colonial rule. Not long afterwards, he organized, or was involved in organizing
a similar federation in the North of the country which came together in Tunis
and shortly thereafter, logically, the two federations merged, in 1946, to form
the General Union of Tunisian Workers (L’Union generale tunisienne de travail –
UGTT).

Hached becomes secretary general of the UGTT at the age of 30

In
1947, at the tender age of 30, Farhat Hached was unanimously elected as
secretary general of Tunisia’s independent trade union movement. From the
outset, Hached directed the energies of the UGTT, ending colonialism and
winning independence for Tunisia. Autonomous of French influence and completely
independent politically, the trade union movement became one of the main bases
for support for the broader nationalist movement led by Habib Bourguiba and his
pro-independence Neo-Destour Party. The strikes, demonstrations and agitation
for independence from 1946 onward intensified, as did the calls by the UGTT to
improve the standard of living of Tunisian workers living and working under
colonial conditions with all the indignities involved.

As
a result of this focused, controlled militant activity, the mood of the country
as a whole radicalized. Then in 1949, the UGTT became the Tunisian branch of
the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) which gave Hached
international connections and influence far beyond Tunisia’s borders, including
in the United States and western Europe. At the time there were two main
international trade union federations. Besides the ICFTU there existed the
Moscow leaning World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU). During much of the Cold
War the two confederations were in competition with each other, splitting the
international working class movement down the middle and weakening the impact
of both.

In
a few short years Hached had become an international personality, and as such
was able to present the cause of Tunisian independence internationally. That
the radical Hached would choose to lead the Tunisian trade union movement into
the US-dominated ICFTU rather than the WFTU is interesting. Part of his reasoning
most probably was that he wanted to steer the Tunisian trade unions away from
the WFTU where the CGT retained considerable influence and in so doing limiting
the influence of French colonialism on the Tunisian labour movement. Along
similar lines, the leadership of the Tunisian nationalist movement, and Habib
Bourguiba in particular, tried to develop good relations with the United
States, because the Tunisians understood that the United States was the
emerging global hegemonic power that could nudge the French to grant Tunisia
independence. They were right about that.

Demotix/Chedly Ben Ibrahim. Protesters are seen chanting " Degage" which means "Out" to say that the Minister of Interior must resign.

Five
years later, – and a year before he was assassinated – Hached was able to
report to a national congress of the UGTT, the progress the movement had made
which included:

-
the UGTT had grown to embrace 120,000 workers throughout the country

-
it had led an organized and disciplined grass roots movement against the French
Occupation

-
The Union had won for Tunisian society as a whole a number of civil rights and
constitutional guarantees from the French colonial administration

-
the UGTT had achieved international recognition by its adhesion to the ICFTU (Hached
had been elected to its executive board)

-
The creation of the UGTT had encouraged, with Hached’s personal participation,
other North African nations under colonial domination (Morocco and Algeria
under French domination, Libya ruled by the Italians) to create their own trade
union movements independent of their colonial overseers.

-
The UGTT had developed its own economic and social vision, civil rights goals
that were embraced by the nationalist movement that could provide direction to
the nation after independence.

The French repress the Tunisian independence movement

In
1952, hoping to gain a quick independence, the Tunisian national movement
opened negotiations with the French government. The negotiations failed and
were almost immediately followed by a harsh wave of repression against the
movement. The French colonial government in Tunis engaged in a fullscale attack
to break the back of the independence movement in one fell swoop. Most of the
leadership of the independence movement, including Habib Bourguiba, were
arrested. A curfew was imposed; all political activity was banned; mass arrests
were carried out by the French foreign legion.

It
was at this moment of full crisis, with the nationalist movement reeling from
the repression, that the UGTT stepped forward, picked up the pieces and assumed
the leadership of both the political and armed resistance (there was some)
against the French authorities. In so doing, it was the trade union movement in
general, and its talented leader Farhat Hached that saved the independence
movement from collapse. In the face of the wave of repression, and French
Colonialism could, when it felt obliged reveal its fangs in the nastiest of
fashions, it was Tunisian trade unionists – its working class – that stood
fast, held their ground and continued the struggle for independence as they say
‘on all fronts’.

And
for that they paid a price, a terrible price, one hardly acknowledged outside
the country. 20,000 trade unionists were arrested and placed in prison and
concentration camps, knowing they would face what the French in North Africa
excelled at: abuse, torture of an exceedingly refined kind, possible death. Of
the 20,000 arrested, 9 were condemned to death and executed, 12 condemned to
life imprisonment of forced labor, with many others receiving heavy jail
sentences In protest demonstrations hundreds were killed and wounded.

Demotix/Chedly Ben Ibrahim. A demonstrator seen showing a weapon shell used by the police in Siliana.

In
a letter that Hached wrote just before his own assassination to the secretary
general Oldenbroek of the ICFTU, the Tunisia trade union leader comments, ‘Let
us add (to the repression noted above) the 50 assassination attempts against
Tunisian militants organized by Le Main Rouge (The Red Hand), French colonial
paramilitary terrorist group. 5 Others, when released from concentration camps
(imagine – only seven years after the defeat of Hitler the French were
establishing concentration camps in Tunisia!) were denied employment.

The
resistance largely organized by Hached and the UGTT in that crucial year of
1952, in many ways broke the back of French colonialism and set the stage for
talks between France and the Tunisian national movement that would, four short
years later, result in independence, an independence that Farhat Hached never
lived to see, but to which he made a considerable contribution. His heritage
lives on, in his children and in all Tunisians.

Rob Prince graduated from St.Lawrence University in French and Religion in 1966, when he served as a US Peace Corps volunteer and staff member in Tunis and Sousse. He lectures in international studies in the Korbel School of International Studies, University of Denver

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